Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 Review

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Princess Sailor Guardians

Sailor Moon Eternal Parts 1 and 2 are both currently streaming on Netflix. This is my review for the second film. You can also read my Part 1 review which was posted last month. I always used to put episode reviews for Sailor Moon Crystal up within a few days of their release but the nature of these movies means that reviewing them is a bit more work! I call this a review even though it’s really more of a vague recap with random commentary and a sprinkling of what might be considered a review.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka and Michiru with baby Hotaru

Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger. Not literally. If it followed the manga more closely it would have ended on a literal cliffhanger as Minako was hanging off of a cliff but stories were moved around to make things fit into movies a bit better. The conclusion to the whole Minako and Human Artemis thing was moved into Part 1 instead of taking place after we get a look at what’s going on with Hotaru and her three moms, which is really where this movie starts off. For the most part, like all of Sailor Moon Crystal, this movie is fairly faithful to the manga source material which it was based on.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka and Michiru

Last time we saw Hotaru she was a baby being whisked away by Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We finally see what they’ve been up to, starting with Haruka and Michiru. If I can take issue with the dub for a moment! There’s a character which, referencing Haruka, says that “He’s such a hottie”. Now I know Japanese doesn’t tend to use gender specific pronouns so this is likely not a terribly literal translation. I also understand that there being some confusion over Haruka’s gender makes sense and is a common theme in the series but are we really going to just pretend that Haruka is not very clearly dressed unambiguously as a woman in this scene? I’m not sure what this was all about.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna's left hand

Left handed mouse

Back at the house Setsuna is using a left handed mouse. What’s this? Is she actually left handed? I didn’t know this! While looking into this I found an article from Tuxedo Unmasked which mentions that Sailor Pluto may be left handed as she usually holds her Garnet Rod in her left hand. This article also goes into some detail about whether or not Rei is left handed, something I mentioned in my Part 1 review. So she’s left handed? Not likely. The only reason we see her left hand on the mouse is because the movie wants to show us her ring which is on her left hand and this is a convenient way to do so. Have you ever tried to use a mouse with your off hand? It’s very awkward. What’s my evidence suggesting that Setsuna isn’t actually left handed? In a scene a bit later in the film she’s back to using a mouse with her right hand. Ambidextrous? Seems like her handedness is whatever suits the needs of the shot!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna is now right handed

Right handed mouse

While Setsuna is browsing an article about the eclipse we see a date! 2016-03-28 or March 28th 2016. I will assume this isn’t the actual date of the eclipse but rather the date on which the article was published. This fits with the date seen in Part 1 where Chibiusa circles April 1st as her date to return to the 30th century. An article about the April 1st eclipse coming out some four days before makes perfect sense. Any problems with this? Well April 1st 2016 was a Friday in the real world and according to Chibiusa’s calendar it was a Thursday. There was also no solar eclipse on April 1st 2016. There was a total solar eclipse on March 9th of 2016 and Japan wasn’t the best place to see it from. So why would the story take place five years in the past? This would probably be because the last new episode of Sailor Moon Crystal we got was on June 27th 2016. Since the series started airing on July 5th 2014 this makes the first few seasons take place within a few years. A six month passage of time since the eclipse is suggested at one point during this film so most of it takes place in late 2016. Most manga arcs seem to take place over about year which could put the Dream arc around 2017 if the events of the first season really are to take place in 2014. If they take place in 2013, when the show was originally meant to start, things line up pretty well. So much to say with a five year gap between Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 and the Sailor Moon Eternal films we can hardly just say it’s 2021 and expect it to make sense that everyone’s just starting high school so the 2016 date seems to work.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru

The big thing for the start of the film is fast aging Hotaru. This is something we see at the start of SailorStars in the original Sailor Moon anime. All of this growth occurred over a six month period and we get a sense of how quick it has been when Haruka mistakenly thinks they need diapers for their fast aging daughter. Hotaru is spouting out odd poetry and making faithful models of the solar system where events up to those taking place in the present play out in super speed. This makes me wonder just how accurate these are. If individual people are recreated in this model do those people experience joy and pain? Does Hotaru recreate every act of suffering in the history of our planet on a whim in her living room? Does this include the death of her mother as well as her father’s painful memories of it? Alternatively if the exact same information patterns of someone’s life are run over and over again are those actual new experiences or just the one experience? Is there a subjective feeling experienced more than once? The whole thing might be very unethical depending on one’s perspective on these issues.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn transforms

So! Hotaru gets old and gives everyone their Sailor Crystals avoiding the requirement of a handful more individual stories in which they learn something about themselves and get their shoulder pad upgrades. Hotaru basically gives them all the upgrades herself. How convenient. Most importantly… a Sailor Saturn transformation sequence! Sailor Saturn had a transformation sequence in season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal but it was a bit different. This one is shorter but a bit more consistent with other transformations. Since Sailor Saturn never did transform in the original Sailor Moon anime it’s always nice to see a transformation sequence. She did have an original anime style transformation sequence as part of a Sailor Saturn game but this was never seen in the TV series or movies.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Two glass shards

Two shards

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia picks up one glass shard

One shard

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia with two glass shards

Two shards again

Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn show up to save the day and everyone is back together again! This doesn’t last long, sadly. Later Zirconia dispatches the Amazoness Quartet and then traps Sailor Chibi Moon and Saturn into shards of a mirror. She then picks up one piece of the mirror and then somehow has two in her hands. What’s going on here? Infuriating! This scene is brief but it’s great seeing Sailor Saturn in action since she’s so neglected in the original Sailor Moon anime. The scene of her and Chibi Moon in the circus tent is similar to their scenes in the early part of Sailor Stars when they fight Nehelenia. In a way the first six episodes of Sailor Stars are a more faithful adaptation of the dream arc than all of Sailor Moon SuperS.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Usagi and Mamoru

We see a young Usagi and Mamoru, which is odd since we sort of already got a fairly extensive look at young Usagi earlier. They turn young in real life and then have a dream where they’re both young which makes me wonder why their real selves needed to even be made young in the first place. How do their dream selves know that their bodies are young? Shouldn’t there be some dysmorphia going on? Regardless, seeing young Usagi and Mamoru in domestic bliss is incredibly cute. What I enjoy about this scene is how similar it is to a major plot point in the Sailor Moon SuperS film. Usagi is in a dream world with Mamoru and questions his unwavering devotion to her. While in the SuperS film this is what she uses to break out of The Matrix, here it’s just a curiosity. Basically Mamoru states that his dream is to live with Usagi and she questions his other dreams like being a doctor. It’s worth noting that many other elements from this arc, like the young versions of so many characters, are also seen in the Sailor Moon SuperS film at many points. While on the surface the movie has nearly nothing to do with the Dream arc of the manga and the SuperS season of the original anime, there are in fact many similarities. These are not likely all intended. Unless some advanced knowledge of one work or another was planned the timelines simply don’t add up. This particular manga story with young Usagi and Mamoru came out in Nakayoshi in December of 1995, the same month in which the SuperS film was released. Since both a manga and animated film take months or longer to go from story to release, these particular similarities seem to be coincidence.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Elysion

Usagi and Mamoru are now with Helios in Elysion and the whole being young thing wasn’t any sort of lasting problem. What is this place? In mythology the similarly named Elysium is the afterlife. Here Elysion, which is a unique name in Sailor Moon, is another world that seems to be somewhat parallel to the Earth. An analog to it as Helios is himself tied to the Earth and the Golden Crystal. More specifically I wonder just where it is. It is suggested that Elysium is within the Earth somehow and there are references to “the surface”. I wonder if Elysium is compatible with the idea of The Hollow Earth. This is an idea of a world deep beneath the surface of the Earth. Though specifics vary the concept is that the Earth itself is a hollow shell and that within that shell there is a whole other ecosystem where “down” is actually towards the outside of the Earth. I tried hard to see indications that Elysion had a normal sky. We don’t see any stars from it. We don’t see the sun even though late in the story there is light coming from the sky. The Hollow Earth is often described as having a small sun at the center of the Earth. The Moon is seen in the sky in that we can see the eclipse from Elysion, but it isn’t clear if the Moon itself is actually visible. Keep in mind this is one of my own pet theories about Elysion and isn’t necessarily intended in either the manga or Sailor Moon Eternal films, but I wonder if this is a kind of pseudoscientific belief that Naoko Takeuchi was into along with all the weird stuff from the Black Moon arc.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Princess Small Lady Serenity

We do this weird thing where we pretend that the maiden that Helios is looking for isn’t Chibiusa and it’s all very silly. He sees this image of a clearly pink haired woman who looks more or less like an older Chibiusa who asks him to find the Golden Crystal. She’s called “Princess Lady Serenity”. He acts as if this is Sailor Moon which makes Chibiusa quite upset, even though she clearly still has Helios’s affection.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Elysion

All this time Mamoru is just walking around in his dress shirt. Why do we pretend these dress shirts are the most comfortable thing? He gives them out to all the ladies who sleep over. Chibiusa sleeps in one during Part 1 and when he’s sick in bed this seems to be his sleepwear of choice. I often wear shirts of this type for work but I’ll generally put a t-shirt on when I’m at home relaxing, especially if I’m sick and bedridden. This would be a believable “I was out doing stuff and then I came home and untucked my shirt so it’s my after hours casual mode” but he’s been bedridden for a while now and the last time he was out was for the eclipse, as far as we can tell, when he wasn’t wearing his tuxedo (which has a ruffled shirt) but a grey dress shirt and vest. Am I to believe that he took off his grey dress shirt and put on a white dress shirt to climb into bed? This really makes no sense and is probably the biggest plot whole in the movie.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Maenads

The shrine in Elysion is guarded by the Maenads who have hair just like Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon which back in the day would have been like both Queen and Princess Serenity. I guess this really was the style at the time? What a strange coincidence that reincarnated Usagi happened to chose a very similar yet impractical and almost never seen hair style.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia and Zirconia

So there’s some fighting which is actually the bulk of the movie. I don’t have a ton to say about this. Almost all of the attacks are so similar to the original Sailor Moon anime that I wonder if they were traced. Helios dies in a non permanent death which is actually fairly common for Sailor Moon but I don’t for a moment think it’s a real thing. Does anyone cry for Helios? Of course he’ll be fine.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity and baby Princess Serenity

We then see an interesting scene which is the birth of Princess Serenity. This scene reminds me a lot of the birth of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. In Sleeping Beauty we have Maleficent, the only one not invited, showing up to celebrate the Princess’s birth only to end up cursing the child to eternal sleep after pricking herself on a spinning wheel needle. Similarly Nehelenia was the only one not invited after Princess Serenity’s birth. Once she shows up an uncharacteristically unkind Queen Serenity, along with the Sailor Guardians, disparage her and tell her she isn’t welcome. She ends up cursing Silver Millennium saying it will fall. This of course does end up happening in the distant past. I wonder if any inspiration occurred between these. One noticeable thing here is that Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all significantly older than the newborn Princess Serenity. Though their ages aren’t specified they speak well, are fairly tall for children and seem ready to fight. I’d guess they are about 6 or 7 here. Princess Serenity appears to be an adolescent in the first story arc. She is arguably slightly older than the 14 year old Usagi who notices physical changes in herself when turning into the Princess. This would put the other Sailor Guardians at over 20 in those flashbacks, though they all appear to be more or less the same age. In the Amour Eternal musical when we see the birth of Princess Serenity the age difference is even greater as the Sailor Guardians are shown to be their fully adolescent ages at that point, similar to their ages in the modern times story of that musical. We know that in Crystal Tokyo adults done age, which include Sailor Moon eternally being in her early 20s, but is there a reason to have people frozen in adolescence in Silver Millennium?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity defeats Queen Nehelenia

I think if original anime Sailor Moon had been in her mother’s place when Nehelenia showed up she could have found a way to make peace or may even have invited her in the first place. The manga version of Sailor Moon does more killing of villains and less winning them over. Remember that anime Sailor Moon ended up having compassion for Nehelenia after all of the harm she did to her and her friends! Queen Serenity with her blank reflectionless eyes doesn’t seem to have any of that attitude when she seals away Queen Nehelenia.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Kissing is the cure to whatever weird lung black rose thing was going on

Once the Moon Effect character song kicks in the movie is really reaching the climax! A lot of this was released in a very spoiler filled music video! This song features vocals by the actors playing all ten of the Sailor Guardians and is included on the “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Character Song Collection Eternal Collection” album. Though Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon are still afflicted with the disease which has black roses on their lungs it seems the resolution to this is… to kiss! Everything is fine now! Great!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Human Artemis, Diana and Luna

Did you like Human Artemis? Did you enjoy Human Luna (in the first season)? Well how about human version of the whole cat family including Diana! This is a big deal as this is the first time we see all of the cats in human form in any anime series!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss

Next up is Eternal everybody! There’s a new Holy Grail and then Sailor Moon becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, hence the name of the movies, but beyond that all of the other Sailor Guardians also get upgraded to their Eternal forms which means those little bubble shoulder pad things which is something we never saw in the original Sailor Moon anime! Sailor Moon finally does her Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss and saves the day! The eclipse, which we can kind of see even though we’re kind of inside the earth, is finally over which is arguably the end of a very long period which only took place over the course of a few minutes, the length of time an eclipse usually lasts for. There isn’t any clear agreement of this but by that timeline the events of this film actually take place within the same day.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Chibi Moon kisses Helios

Turns out Helios isn’t dead and Sailor Chibi Moon (Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon) kisses him while he sleeps. Do we want to dig up the whole kissing a sleeping person lacks consent discourse again? In this particular case since Helios had previously expressed his interest in Chibiusa when he kissed her in the first film I think that makes this whole situation less of a concern than when Tuxedo Mask did it in the first story arc. The best kept secret of the films, that Chibiusa is actually the one Helios has been looking for, is revealed! She becomes Princess Lady Serenity and gets her Pink Moon Crystal!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion

Eternal Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask now becomes Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion for the first time without some influence from the future. Everyone gets their lovely princess dresses back and there was much rejoicing.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Sailor Quartet

Sailor Saturn still has the Amazoness Quartet balls. When these four are revived they are the Sailor Quartet! Sailor Cere, Sailor Palas, Sailor Juno and Sailor Vesta are all named after the same celestial objects they had identified with originally but now it makes a bit more sense why! They are Sailor Guardians who’s duty it is to protect Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon or rather Princess Lady Serenity and not related directly to Sailor Moon or Neo Queen Serenity. It’s really fun to see the Sailor Quartet! Sadly they aren’t around for long as they claim that they should be asleep in the jungle so they take off. Why does this matter? You’re here! Let’s get the gang together! Chibiusa should only be a twinkle in Mamoru’s eye but she’s around and actively involved in the fight so who’s to say that the Amazoness Quartet are better off chilling in a jungle somewhere? My two dream concepts for new Sailor Moon series would be a Codename: Sailor V series and some sort of future Sailor Guardian series with Chibi Moon, the Sailor Quartet and maybe Helios fighting some evil and perhaps traveling through time to do it! I won’t hold my breath for that.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Pegasus and Helios

Now Helios is there with Pegasus which makes me wonder how this is even possible! Aren’t they kind of the same being? In the original Sailor Moon anime they certainly were, with Pegasus being his name rather than a descriptor of the kind of horse he is, but it seems they are different entities. Kind of weird!

Well the movie pretty much wraps up with a bunch of people going on their way. What we don’t see in the Netflix version is a message saying “To be continued” but this is on the Japanese Blu-ray and it seems like it was in the version shown in theatres in Japan. Why remove this from the Netflix version? No idea! I hope we don’t have to wait quite as many years to get a Stars arc of Sailor Moon Crystal as we did for Sailor Moon Eternal!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Helios and Pegasus

The credits are fairly unremarkable. I can’t read any of that! We have a couple of songs here. The first is Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for the Sailor Moon Eternal films. This is actually the first time we hear it in this movie since it doesn’t have an intro like the 90s films did! After this we have the new version of “Rashiku” Ikumasho (I’ll Go As Myself) by Anza! Anza was the first actress to portray Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon musicals and continued to do so for five years. This song was originally the second ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, the original adaptation of the Dreams arc of the Sailor Moon manga, which makes it a fitting song to end the final movie with.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia is defeated

All in all I found Part 2 to be a good movie. It wasn’t as obviously episodic as Part 1 where you could easily see the breaks between manga chapters. That said there isn’t really as much going on with this film which mostly centers on the big battles with Zirconia and Nehelenia.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka, Setsuna, Michiru, Hotaru, Chibiusa, Rei, Makoto, Ami and Minako

More generally the Sailor Moon Eternal films just look fantastic. The designs are great and since these movies are shorter than full seasons the animation is better and there seems to have been more time and money dedicated to every minute of this film compared to earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. We can only hope the Stars arc will look as good, though I’m hoping for a return to a series for that season or that if it will be movies that they make three of them! We shall see.

What did you think of this second film? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more screenshots of the film.

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An in depth look at the Sailor Moon Eternal magazine

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Front and back covers

The Sailor Moon Eternal magazine which we posted about last week was released on December 24th. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on a copy, and taken many photos of it, I’m prepared to share some thoughts on it. I’m very happy with this magazine! For the price this really is a great value. The magazine costs only 550 Japanese yen, a bit over $5 US, and includes 32 full colour pages with photos of Sailor Moon Eternal as well as other series from throughout the years. Don’t accept the photos I am sharing as substitutes for the real thing and pick a copy up for yourselves if you can. If you happen to live in Japan this is probably easy enough though international fans will find that the shipping cost for such an inexpensive item is significant, as was the case for me when I ordered my copy from Amazon Japan.

I’ll include photos of all pages of this magazine. These aren’t the best they could be as I don’t own a scanner anymore and because I’m in the middle of a move my camera is in a box somewhere. These were taken with my iPhone and edited to create smaller files. If anyone would like a close up photo of anything in this magazine let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Front cover - Sailor Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune

First off is the cover, which is quite beautiful. Note that this is the online exclusive cover featuring Sailor Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune with Chibi Moon on the back. There is also a cover which is sold in stores in Japan which features Sailor Moon on the cover and Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus on the back. I was surprised at just how big this was! This is much larger than a magazine and is probably more like a special edition newspaper. The paper quality isn’t the best and there is no binding. These are just loose sheets so the item came packaged in a sealed plastic bag. As indicated on the cover this magazine is released by Sponichi also known as Sport Nippon. Why is a daily sports magazine releasing a Sailor Moon magazine? Not sure!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 2 and 3 - Interview with Nanao, the voice of Nehelenia

Pages 2 and 3 feature a two page interview with Nanao, a Japanese actress and model who will be providing the voice of Nehelenia in the films.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 4 and 5 - Interview with Naomi Watanabe, the voice of Zirconia

Next is a two page interview with Japanese comedian Naomi Watanabe who will be providing the voice of Zirconia.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 6 and 7 - Character bios

The following two pages include bios for all of the Sailor Guardians as well as Tuxedo Mask and Helios. The ordering of these, as well as some other elements in this magazine, strikes me as a bit odd. Anyone who reads manga will realize that Japanese is written “backwards” as compared to what is seen in the west where panels will be read from right to left and top to bottom. These bios however are sorted from left to right starting with Sailor Moon in the top left and ending with lowly Helios in the bottom right. All the while the Sailor Mercury transformation sequence at the top of the pages goes from right to left.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 8 and 9 - The Dead Moon Circus, Chibiusa and Pegasus

Page 8 shows us the Dead Moon Circus with Nehelenia, Zirconia, the Amazon Trio and the Amazoness Quartet. Page 9 has Chibiusa and Pegasus with an overview of the film’s story.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 10 and 11 - Interview with Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Usagi, and Momoiro Clover Z

Page 10 is an interview with Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon, and it also includes a few images from the film, most of which we’ve seen in better quality at this point. Page 11 has information about Momoiro Clover Z and Moon Color Chainon, the theme for the film. It also includes some other staff information.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 12 and 13 - Usagi and Mamoru's Miracle Romance

Pages 12 and 13 are layed out like newspaper clippings telling the story of Usagi and Mamoru’s “Miracle Romance”. This features images from earlier in the Sailor Moon Crystal series.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 14 and 15 - Sailor Moon Cafe Ad and Sailor Moon's History Map

Page 14 is an ad for the Sailor Moon Cafe. Page 15 is half of a fold out which I’ll explain below.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Sailor Moon's History fold out

This Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon’s History fold out is the back side of the centerfold which is actually pages 15 and 18. This shows a timeline of the various incarnations of Sailor Moon spanning manga, anime and musicals. Even the often forgotten live action series gets a mention! The final piece in the history is a poster for the Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show which we hope to see soon!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 16 and 17 - Centerfold - Small Worlds Tokyo Map

The centerfold for the magazine is a two page spread of the Small Worlds Tokyo exhibit which included a mini version of Tokyo as seen in Sailor Moon. This features some side by side photos of real locations in Tokyo compared to scenes from Sailor Moon Eternal!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 18 and 19 - Sailor Moon's History and VR Dream Flight Ad

Page 18 is the other half of the Sailor Moon’s History fold out and Page 19 has an ad for VR Dream Flight which is an event I haven’t posted about but probably should have. This is a Virtual Reality experience which lets fans fly around Tokyo with Pegasus, Chibiusa and Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 20 and 21 - All manga covers

Pages 20 and 21 show us every single manga cover released in Japan! This includes four full releases and the first two covers of the new colour versions.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 22 and 23 - Moon Color Chainon Ad and a weird Q&A chat thing

Page 22 is an ad for the Moon Color Chainon CD/Blu-ray releases which are coming on January 13th. These are still not in stock on Amazon Japan so I’m hoping that gets resolved in the next couple of weeks. Page 23 is a weird thing which I can’t quite figure out. It seems to be a fake group chat between various Sailor Moon characters though I’m not sure who’s who or what’s going on.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 24 and 25 - Sailor Moon Eternal Ad and Four Choices Quiz

Page 24 is an ad for a Sky Garden Sailor Moon Eternal event which will include a screening of the film, a shop, a cafe and the VR event. Page 25 has a quiz where there are four choices each. Again the order of these question is a bit odd, reading left to right. Some of these are very easy but I’m frankly stumped by question 7 which asks which character is Phobos. Perhaps it will be obvious what colour Phobos and Deimos are in the film but as it currently stands there is only conflicting evidence of this from manga art book sources.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 26 and 27 - Konica Minolta Planetarium

Pages 26 and 27 are ads for the Konica Minolta Planetarium where fans will be able to take their photo with a Sailor Moon poster, buy Sailor Moon themed drinks at the cafe as well as other merchandise.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 28 and 29 - Merchandise

Pages 28 and 29 show tons of Sailor Moon merchandise which is available for sale from various retailers.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 30 and 31 - Colouring Page and 3coins Ad

Page 30 has a colour page based on the Nehelenia poster. I’m not sure the paper can be drawn on terribly well but I’m not about to let my children loose on this thing to test that theory out! Page 31 is an ad for 3coins which is a store which is selling a number of fairly inexpensive Sailor Moon products.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Back cover - Super Chibi Moon and the Index

Finally the back cover of the magazine shows Super Sailor Chibi Moon!

All in all I really think this is a great magazine. It’s full of ads, yes, but they’re all Sailor Moon ads. For the low price point this is a fun collectible for fans to check out. Below I’ve included a few more close up images of some things in this magazine.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Human Artemis

Spoiler! This is Artemis in human form! There was a leak of this image earlier but here is a higher quality version.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Phobos or Deimos?

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Deimos or Phobos?

Which is Phobos and which is Deimos? Wikimoon mentions that there has been inconsistent evidence of which character is what colour. The two are only ever shown in black and white in the manga so there’s no conclusive evidence there. They are in some of the Sailor Moon art books however in volume IV Phobos is purple and Deimos is red (PIPDIR) while in volume V Phobos is red and Deimos is purple (PIRDIP). Hopefully the film will clear this up once and for all, but will this really settle things conclusively? This reminds me of the controversy in the Transformers fan community where there is a never ending conflict between the cartoon purist FIRRIB camp (Frenzy is red, Rumble is blue) and the toy collecting FIBRIR camp (Frenzy is blue, Rumble is red).

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pegasus

This is an image of Pegasus in a cage which I shared previously in lower quality.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Mamoru and Young Usagi

I hadn’t seen this image of Mamoru and young Usagi before so I figured I’d share.

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming shortly afterwards on February 11th. Get caught up with the series before the films are released by using the Amazon links below or streaming the episodes on Crunchyroll or Hulu in the US or on Tubi in Canada. Read the manga stories the film will be based on in volumes 7 and 8 of the Eternal Edition which collects Acts 39, Eclipse Dream, through 49, Earth and Moon Dream, as well as some side stories.


Naomi Watanabe has been revealed as the voice of Zirconia in the Sailor Moon Eternal films

Naomi Watanabe as Zirconia

Following Tuesday’s teaser clip of Zirconia we now know that the voice for that character will be none other than Japanese comedian and actor Naomi Watanabe. A Twitter contest was run asking fans to give their guess as to who the voice actually was and, as we reported earlier this week, many of them were right in guessing that this was actually Naomi Watanabe! She is a big fan of Sailor Moon as you can see by the Super Sailor Moon costume which she is wearing in the photo above.

Sailor Moon Eternal - Zirconia

I had previously mentioned Naomi Watanabe in passing when announcing that she would be in The Promised Neverland live action adaptation along with live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon star Keiko Kitagawa who played Sailor Mars in the series. Earlier this week, on September 7th, Keiko Kitagawa gave birth to a baby girl!

Keiko Kitagawa as Mama Isabella in The Promised Neverland

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming shortly afterwards on February 11th. We still don’t have any details about a release outside of Japan but we will be sure to share any such information as we get it. What do you think of this casting? Could you tell that it was Naomi Watanabe based on the clip? Which of her previous works have you enjoyed?

A clip of Zirconia from Sailor Moon Eternal is released as part of a contest to have fans guess her voice actor

Sailor Moon Eternal - Zirconia

We’ve finally gotten our first look at Zirconia from the upcoming film Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 and it comes with a challenge for fans to identify her voice actor. I’ll admit that my ear for distinguishing Japanese voices isn’t good enough to be able to make a decent guess at who this is. Have a listen to the clip on Twitter or embedded below to hear for yourself.


Do you recognize the voice? If so, give us your guess as to what that might be in the comments below or on social media. Fans are asked to post their guess to Twitter using the hashtags #劇場版セーラームーン and #ジルコニアの声優は誰だ which translate roughly to “Sailor Moon The Movie” and “Who is the Zirconia voice actor?”. You’ll probably want to Tweet in Japanese to have a chance of having it be seen! Three correct guesses will be given a Sailor Moon Eternal movie poster.

Naomi Watanabe

A quick look at those hashtags suggests that many Japanese fans are guessing that this is the voice of Naomi Watanabe, a popular Japanese comedian and actress. Her distinctive laugh seems to be what’s making people guess this. We will learn if this is correct on Friday!

The Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming out a month later on February 11th. With the reveal of Zirconia it looks like the main characters from the first film have all been seen.

Check out the Sailor Guardians, Helios and the villains from the Sailor Moon Amour Eternal musical

Sailor Moon Amour Eternal Helios, Nehelenia, Zirconia, Tiger's Eye, Hawk's Eye and Fish Eye

We’ve gotten a few updates about the upcoming Sailor Moon musical, Amour Eternal, recently. The latest is an image of Helios, Nehelenia, Zirconia and the Amazon Trio which was posted to the official Sailor Moon site. We’ve also gotten a look at the Sailor Guardians, old and new, in their uniforms in some images and a commercial which is included below:

We had previously learned who all of these actors were going to be but this is the first time we see them in costume. What do you think?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Amour Eternal cast

There has also been a cast change, which was mentioned in our last update, where Hikari Kuroki who was originally cast as Sailor Mercury was replaced by Yume Takeuchi. This was said to have simply been because of “cast circumstances” without specifics. I’ve learned some details about what may have prompted this. She posted on Twitter that she was leaving because of complaints. Some believe she may have been removed from her role for having posed as a gravure model in the past, which means that she did modeling in clothing such as revealing swimsuits. I also saw comments suggesting she had changed her name since then. I do not know the exact nature of all of her previous works so I can not comment on the specifics, but it seems unfortunate for something like this and the public shaming that ensued to have caused problems with her career. Many other actors who have been affiliated with various incarnations of Sailor Moon have done this type of work so it’s hard to say if this is the actual reason for her leaving and we will likely not be getting anything in the way of official confirmation if this is the case. Some details about this come from an article from Yahoo Japan. You can read a translation of this and her tweet on the Ai No Message Tumblr page.

This musical, which covers the Dream arc of the manga, will be playing in Japan in October and November of this year.

Additional images can be found at 25news.jp.

The next Sailor Moon musical, Amour Eternal, has a terrible name

Amour Eternal - Did you mean Amour éternel?

An update has been posted to the official Sailor Moon site which reveals the name of the latest musical, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Amour Eternal, as well as a complete cast listing. The new musical has been confirmed to be covering the Dream arc of the manga, adapted as Sailor Moon SuperS in the original Sailor Moon anime. This title is just the worst! Amour, as most probably know, is the French word for love. Eternal however is not French at all. It’s a full on English word. What the hell? Why not Amour éternel, which would actually be proper French? Are we supposed to pronounce it in French? It just sounds gross to say Amour Eternal. It’s just bastardizing two languages. It’s gross. The last two musicals all had fully French names. Is this supposed to be a misspelled French word or is this intentionally terribly mismatched English and French words? This is just bad and it will not stop bothering me and I will probably not be able to avoid mentioning how terribly stupid it is at least once in any post referencing this musical. This offends me as both and English and French speaking person and it should bother you too.

Everlasting love translates to Amour éternel

This title will just lead to more confusion on what the name means. Amour éternel would translate roughly to everlasting love or eternal love. I guess eternal is more the word we’re going for since it’s the actual English word in the horrible title.

Here’s an English translation of the cast, courtesy of Wikimoon:

Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon: Hotaru Nomoto
Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury: Yume Takeuchi
Rei Hino/Sailor Mars: Karen Kobayashi
Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter: Kaede
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus: Rimo Hasegawa
Haruka Tenou/Sailor Uranus: Syu Shiotsuki
Michiru Kaiou/Sailor Neptune: Sayaka Fujioka
Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn: Karin Takahashi
Sailor Pluto: Mikako Ishii
Sailor Chibi Moon/Chibiusa: Airi Kanda
Helios: Hikaru Hiyama
Queen Nehellenia: Sayu Otsuki
Zirconia: Kanami Sakai
Tiger’s Eye: Chihiro Ando
Hawk’s Eye: Riona Tatemichi
Fisheye: Yumi
Dead Moon Circus: Yoshika Kobayashi, Risa Kawamura, Yoshimi Hidano, Chiemi Doi, Ayano Nagasawa, Ayumi Sagisaka
Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask: Yuga Yamato

Some newcomers and some repeat performances here. Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all new actors, as we’ve seen announced previously. We already saw that Yuga Yamato would return as Tuxedo Mask. Shuu Shiotsuki, Sayaka Fujioka, Mikako Ishii and Karin Takahashi will be reprising their roles as Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn. Airi Kanda will also be returning as Chibiusa. Riona Tatemichi, who previously played Rubeus in the Petite Étrangère musical, will be playing Hawk’s Eye. The rest of the cast are newcomers to the musicals, as those characters have no appeared before.

We Are The New Pretty Guardians - The cast of the next Sailor Moon musical

We previously reported that Hikari Kuroki would play Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury. This role is now credited as Yume Takeuchi. I don’t know what prompted this change in casting, but this replacement was posted as a separate update on the Sailor Moon official site on the same day as this updated cast listing was shared.

Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 150 and 151 are now available on Hulu

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 150 - The Amazoness Quartet in civilian form

This week on Sailor Moon SuperS we are introduced to the Amazoness Quartet as episodes 150 and 151 are added to Hulu and Neon Alley. First the Dead Moon Circus, which arrived in town over 20 episodes ago, arrives in town? and then Ami has an Internet romance with a young musician.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 150 - CereCere attacks Ziriconia

Episode 150, The Amazoness: Nightmare from Behind the Mirrors, introduces us to the Amazoness Quartet. Last week I mentioned that not much had happened this season and this episode reminds us of that. There is a circus in town! The Dead Moon Circus. That damned tent showed up out of nowhere during the eclipse in episode 128 and we’re only now getting around to addressing it? Nehelenia, this season’s main villain, is seen only briefly in a mirror at the beginning of this episode. Better late than never! I am kind of joking when I say that nothing has happened yet this season, but the Korean dub actually skipped everything up to this episode and just had to insert something about the Super transformations into the fight to make it all make sense. Anyway, the Amazoness Quartet are kind of cool. CereCere, VesVes, JunJun and PallaPalla are terribly behaved young girls. They not only argue with Zirconia but CereCere tries to actually fight her, which only ends because Zirconia turns out to be more powerful. As villains they are less objectionable than sleazy pick up artists and seem to fit with the whole circus theme more as they do acrobatics. The target this week is Momoko. Again. But there isn’t much focus on her as she just sort of tags along with the gang to go to the circus. The Amazoness Quartet aren’t quite as invasive in getting the Mirror of Dreams from their targets as they do so by knocking a pool ball into them, usually after doing some sort of elaborate trick shot. The episode closes with the Amazoness Quartet getting massaged which is a testament to their slacker attitudes.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 150 - The Amazoness Quartet getting massaged

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 151 - Ami naked

Episode 151, True Power Explodes: Ami’s Melody of the Heart, is the episode where we see Ami naked. Ami was chilling on the Internet before it was cool! Remember that this episode was released nearly 20 years ago, in November of 1995. The Internet wasn’t what it is today back then. Ami is downloading music on a computer network almost 4 years before Napster! She downloaded some music by user N. T. and is so into him that she’s writing poetry inspired by his music. Ami meets up with N. T. who is actually Toshiyuki Nishino, a young piano player who, much to Ami’s disappointment, has a girlfriend named Kyouko! Note that the initials N. T. apply because in Japanese the family name comes before the given name when stated, so he would be Nishino Toshiyuki. Then we get into this whole Ami powering up to Sailor Mercury thing. During the fight we cut to a scene with a fully naked Ami which should make some fans happy. She talks to Sailor Mercury, which is odd since Ami and Sailor Mercury are never before shown as being different people, and this causes her to do some kind of awakening. Why are we doing this? Pegasus powered everyone up a bunch of episodes ago. Now we are making every character do some sort of episode centred on them so that they can embrace their new powers. Another sign that we could have completely skipped the first half of the season and just started with episode 150 and using these sort of special episodes as reasons to power everyone up one at a time. Perhaps Ami just talks to herself because she has no family, as we learn briefly about her dead beat father who isn’t around and sends her a painting.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 151 - Sailor Mercury and Ami

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Sailor Moon SuperS episode 150 - The Dead Moon Circus

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 151 - Ami and N. T.